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In Praise Of Pit Bulls: Author Jim Gorant Speaks Out About Misunderstood Dogs And The Laws Aimed At Them

In 2008 Sports Illustrated senior editor Jim Gorant stumbled into a story about the dogs rescued from the Michael Vick fighting case. His story for the magazine wound up on the cover and led to a book, The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick’s Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption, which became a New York Times bestseller.

In 2012, Gorant came back with Wallace: The Underdog Who Conquered a Sport, Saved a Marriage and Championed Pit Bulls—One Flying Disc at a Time, which told the story of an abandoned pit bull who went from death row at a “low-kill” shelter to world champion Frisbee dog. Along the way, Wallace became a rallying point for those fighting to change the breed’s perception and the breed bans that were popping up around the country. With the buzz in the air about the Westminster show, we caught up with Gorant to talk pit bulls, BSL and pitcher Mark Buehrle.

How did you meet Wallace?

When I was writing The Lost Dogs I met Roo and Clara Yori, who had adopted one of the Vick refugees, Hector. As it turns out, they had also adopted Wallace about six years earlier. I came to know them pretty well and eventually they approached me about working on a book about Wallace. I had heard of Wallace, but I didn’t really know the details of his story. Once I dug into it a little, I knew it was too good a story to pass up.

What is breed specific legislation (BSL)?

It’s any law that attempts to ban a specific breed of dog in a given area—almost always pit bulls. There are dozens of BSL laws across the U.S., including major metropolitan areas such as Miami and Denver. All these laws start with the assumption that entire populations of certain breeds are inherently dangerous, which defies simple logic. Another quirk is that despite the name, they’re not very specific: The wording in most doesn’t outlaw American pit bull terriers or American Staffordshire terriers but refers to “pit bull type” dogs, which covers an awful lot of ground. They also don’t specify how much of a dog’s genetic make-up needs to derive from a particular breed to be considered part of that breed. There aren’t that many purebred pit bulls out there, so is a dog that a 50% mix a pit bull? What about 25%, 10%?

What’s your take on BSL?

It’s ineffective, inexact and overly punitive. If you got rid of every dog that had any pit bull blood in it tomorrow, you would not eliminate problem dogs. There are still a lot of other large strong breeds out there and the type of dog owner that’s going to cause problems will simply switch to one of those other breeds. I believe, like a lot of others, that a simple “bad dog” law is better. It allows residents to take action against a problem dog, regardless of breed. As the saying goes, Punish the deed, not the breed.

What would you say to the people who disagree with you?

I’d ask to see the evidence of how BSL helps, because there have been studies that show the places that have these laws are no safer. And the enforcement costs money.

I’ve spent some time on the phome with Mark’s wife, Jamie, and I think they’re a great example. A great family with a model dog who have been forced to rearrange their lives because of these indiscriminate laws that treat all dogs of a certain genetic make-up the same way. This year the family will actually be split up, because Mark was traded to the Blue Jays and they’d have to get rid of their dog if they moved anywhere near Toronto. All because they have a dog that has never caused a problem but has the wrong genes.

There was a story earlier this year in Belfast, Northern Ireland about a family pet named Lennox who had never bitten anyone or shown any aggressive tendencies and yet he was euthanized because of a BSL. This despite a huge outcry including TV personality Victoria Stillwell offering to find Lennox a home in the U.S. at her own expense. What can we learn from stories like the one about Lennox?

Hopefully, we can see how sad and wrongheaded these breed bans are. Here was a dog that was not a pit bull (a bull dog/Lab mix) that had never caused a problem, yet he was seized, arbitrarily deemed to be a pit bull, and put down. None of it was necessary. It caused the family who lost its dog a great deal of pain and did nothing to make the community safer.

Why do you like writing about dogs?

I like telling good, compelling stories, regardless of the topic. It just so happens that I found a few of those that dealt with dogs. That said, there’s a satisfaction in writing about dogs because you’re giving voice to creatures that can’t speak for themselves. And for the most part, people love dogs.

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Kudos to Jim Gorant for dispelling the myths about these misunderstood dogs. If the media would focus on positive stories about them, that would help too. For example, this story about a pit bull who saved two women and five dogs from a house fire will probably not get much media attention… http://www.ilovedogs.com/2013/02/hero-pit-bull-saves-women-and-dogs-from-house-fire/

You are very right, we never see anything about the positive stories relating to these dogs–we have to go looking for them. News articles like this on popular websites make me hope that we can start to have real social change regarding BSL and the stereotypes surrounding pitbulls. They are misunderstood because of media bias, and hopefully that can change in the future. Great comment! Thanks for the link to the story.

Good point. I think the media does tend to report these “positive” stories–but they don’t seem to attract much comment beyond “How nice.” But when a child is attacked by a dog, there’s not only outcry but demands for action, like Breed Specific Laws.

Hannah Thanks for the comments. Again, I don’t think it’s so much media bias as human nature. We tend to have more visceral reactions to stories about dangerous dogs than about heroic ones. And sometimes that leads to well-meaning people making laws that (IMHO) do more harm than good.

Very nice article. A big thanks to you, Jim Gorant, Roo and Clari, Wallace, Hector and all the other great people and dogs who remind us every day the true nature of these dogs and any other dog. They are man’s best friend with good reason. They give unconditional love, are tremendously loyal and only enrich people’s lives when treated with compassion and respect for what they are and are surrounded by humans who are committed to being responsible for doing right by them.

The real story of pit bulls is played out daily in thousands of FAMILIES around the country. Pit bulls as family members to humans of all ages, dogs large and small, cats, chickens, goats, ferrets, pigs…you name it. Please visit [mypitbullisfamily.com] and help us ‘Lick Discrimination’ that kills so many wonderful innocent family dogs because of how they look. Thank you. These animals need your help. They are voiceless without us. <3 Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyPitBullisFamily

There’s a lot of ignorance about ‘pit bulls’, plus a small contingent of trolls on the web seeking to deliberately foment ignorance and hysteria (they haven’t shown up on this thread, yet…) based on being butt hurt about having been personally bitten by dogs. I’m sorry that happened to them, but it doesn’t excuse deliberately spreading hysteria.

Dogs most people would describe as ‘pit bulls’ (albeit vague term often deliberately twisted back and forth by the haters to suit their purposes at a given moment) are involved disproportionately in bad incidents and practices related to dogs. But in order to condemn a whole group of dogs, and moreover to infringe on the human rights of people who love and responsibly care for dogs fitting this general description, you have to have a damn solid proof that unalterable genetic characteristics of this whole category of dog are most or all of the problem. The haters just don’t have that proof. They have general statistics of reported dog bites, but besides imprecision in such reports, it doesn’t correct for the obviously important factor of what the *owners* of those dogs do (as in not neutering male dogs, as exhibit A, 90% of serious dog attacks on people are by unaltered males). And it’s ridiculous to claim that the owner demographic doesn’t vary by breed, and highly speculative to claim that the same bad actors wouldn’t do the same things with different breeds of dogs if forced to, or OTOH to assume that BSL’s are really enforceable against the bad actors (rather than the usual BSL circuses we see of animal control ‘chasing their tails’ and wasting taxpayer money in disputes with owners resembling Buerhle as to whether particular neutered non-threat dogs are really ‘pit bulls’).

It’s up to the people who want to limit other people’s rights, or even kill their dogs, to prove that such drastic actions are the only way to address a problem they’ve proven is a critical one (not just that they were personally bitten and traumatized and now want to be ‘activists’ as part of their therapy to ‘take back control of their lives’). It’s not up to the people who want to be left alone to prove why they should be left alone, or to prove that the problem is overblown.

Dogs BREEDS are demonized in direct proportion to the numbers of the members of a given breed which are associated with “undesirable” people–gangstas, bangahs, i,e, people of color. Communities may not legislate who may live there, but they MAY regulate the dogs, and so they do so. If the “scary, brown people” started promenading with pink Labradoodles, within a WEEK there would be a plethora of news accounts of (white) kids and grannies attacked by those snarling, pink beasts. Gay-Ron-TEED, chers…